Cluster Map

June 23, 2005

The Suicide Bomber, Narcissism, and the Ego Ideal: Part I

Two recent stories have received less air time than they deserve. The stories together tell us something profound and profoundly troubling about our enemies. I will address the first item today and the second tomorrow.

On Monday, a Gazan woman, Wafa Samir Ibrahim al-Biss, was caught attempting to cross into Israel to become a suicide bomber. As reported in the newspaper Ha'aretz, Gaza woman seized en route to bombing hospital in Israel, the woman had been burned in a kitchen fire some months earlier and was receiving treatment at Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva, the major medical center in the Negev.

On Monday she was due for a checkup at the hospital. The Shin Bet said her handlers gave her the pants packed with explosives that morning, and instructed her to blow herself up in the hospital, in a "noisy, crowded place."

Realizing she had been discovered, Al-Biss apparently tried to blow herself up, but failed to detonate the bomb. She later removed the explosive device and sappers blew it up.

She was allowed to be interviewed on Israeli TV and made statements that are worth noting:

Sitting calmly across from an Israeli TV interviewer, the young woman with large brown eyes and curly dark hair pulled back in a short ponytail explained that she decided to carry out a suicide attack against Israel because of its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Clearly visible were large burn scars covering her neck and hands.

"My dream was to be a martyr," she said. "I believe in death."

She rejected the reporter's observation that Israel plans to pull out of Gaza and part of the West Bank. "You are still in settlements in the West Bank," she said, "and you're still in Khan Yunis [in Gaza], aren't you?"

In the TV interviews, she appeared confident and clear about her role as a suicide bomber. She said it had nothing to do with her disfigurement, which might make her less desirable as a bride. "Don't think that because of how I look I wanted to carry out an attack. ... Since I was a little girl I wanted to carry out an attack."

Her composure was eventually shaken when she began to realize she is now facing a very long prison sentence. By the end of the article it becomes clear this is a rather suggestible young woman who, while not brain washed, had been primed from early in her life to see becoming a suicide bomber as a way to become a highly esteemed person.

The ego ideal is the collection of abilities, traits, strengths and weaknesses, that make up the person who the child wishes he could be. This will include identifications with various important people in the child's world (including fantasies of people, but that takes us farther afield) and can include famous people as well. Many adolescents and pre-adolescents long to be like their favorite athlete or movie star (though what they want to be like is their fantasy of the person based on the celebrity's carefully crafted persona. Despite the celebrity culture in this country, most people give up their longing to be someone else well before they reach adulthood.)

....

In the healthy person, by adulthood, the ego ideal has been tempered by reality and includes a realistic assessment of one's abilities and attributes. (Many a "great" third grade athlete recognizes, by high school, that his two left feet render him a better bet for college than for pro sports, and is able to negotiate the metamorphosis, without too much emotional pain, of his ego ideal to more closely approximate reality.) The healthy person sees himself as lovable, likable, able to like and love others, able to do good and useful work, and adding some benefit to the community.

Clearly, al Biss comes from a culture in which celebrity-hood is bestowed upon those who are killed, or kill themselves, fighting the hated, larger than life, Jew. People who pay attention to such things (MEMRI, for example) have been pointing out for years that the Palestinian authority has glorified suicide bombers as great and holy martyrs deserving of love and admiration. Unfortunately, politicians, diplomats, media people, blinded by their own need to fight for the imagined Palestinian victim, have had to close their eyes to the menace (especially to the Palestinian culture and their children) of constantly nurturing their impressionable young on such toxic nutrients.

Furthermore, there appears to be a strain in fundamentalist versions of Islam which reinforces similar tendencies in non-Palestinian Muslims. I will address this tomorrow.

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The Suicide Bomber, Narcissism, and the Ego Ideal: Part I

Two recent stories have received less air time than they deserve. The stories together tell us something profound and profoundly troubling about our enemies. I will address the first item today and the second tomorrow.

On Monday, a Gazan woman, Wafa Samir Ibrahim al-Biss, was caught attempting to cross into Israel to become a suicide bomber. As reported in the newspaper Ha'aretz, Gaza woman seized en route to bombing hospital in Israel, the woman had been burned in a kitchen fire some months earlier and was receiving treatment at Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva, the major medical center in the Negev.

On Monday she was due for a checkup at the hospital. The Shin Bet said her handlers gave her the pants packed with explosives that morning, and instructed her to blow herself up in the hospital, in a "noisy, crowded place."

Realizing she had been discovered, Al-Biss apparently tried to blow herself up, but failed to detonate the bomb. She later removed the explosive device and sappers blew it up.

She was allowed to be interviewed on Israeli TV and made statements that are worth noting:

Sitting calmly across from an Israeli TV interviewer, the young woman with large brown eyes and curly dark hair pulled back in a short ponytail explained that she decided to carry out a suicide attack against Israel because of its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Clearly visible were large burn scars covering her neck and hands.

"My dream was to be a martyr," she said. "I believe in death."

She rejected the reporter's observation that Israel plans to pull out of Gaza and part of the West Bank. "You are still in settlements in the West Bank," she said, "and you're still in Khan Yunis [in Gaza], aren't you?"

In the TV interviews, she appeared confident and clear about her role as a suicide bomber. She said it had nothing to do with her disfigurement, which might make her less desirable as a bride. "Don't think that because of how I look I wanted to carry out an attack. ... Since I was a little girl I wanted to carry out an attack."

Her composure was eventually shaken when she began to realize she is now facing a very long prison sentence. By the end of the article it becomes clear this is a rather suggestible young woman who, while not brain washed, had been primed from early in her life to see becoming a suicide bomber as a way to become a highly esteemed person.